Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

The day that deep down we all knew was coming is here. Hillary Clinton is officially the Democratic nominee and Bernie has given her his full throated endorsement. This article will not be an “I told you so” or an attempt to rub salt in the wounds of of those who passionately felt the Bern and who now only feel burned. Frankly Bernie exceeded my admittedly low expectations. I think at points he may have even made a self satisfied and complacent Clinton camp sweat. Even this cynical anarchist was excited that so many people were actually open to the idea of socialism, however ill defined their idea of it may have been. At the very least it seemed possible that Bernie and his surprisingly passionate supporters might drag the Democrats, kicking and screaming, to the left. Alas, even that seems not be. The rightwing of the party appears ascendent and will likely continue to be.

Why would this be? Bernie ran as good a campaign as one has any right to expect. He delivered into the Democratic fold loads of previously disaffected or apathetic voters that could, at least through sheer force of numbers, pull the party to the left. But of course that’s not how the major political parties work in America. The Democrats will condescend to these people, take their money and their votes, but give those wackos real influence? Lol, no thanks.

To understand why the Democrats can burn the Berners and expect to get away with it we need to look at the Republican party. The rise of Trump and his anti-free trade nativism has alienated major business constituencies. In the last fundraising period Hillary raised some $40 million, compared to Trump’s paltry $3 million. Wall Street and Silicon Valley, generally Democratic leaning anyway, have lined up behind Hillary even more solidly than usual, the eccentric Peter Thiel notwithstanding. More worrying to Republican bean counters, the Chamber of Commerce, normally a stalwartly Republican pile of money, has been openly flirting with the Democrats. Most spectacular though is the Koch Brothers who are tacitly backing Clinton. With them goes not only their money, but the money of a whole clique of douchey one percenters that the Kochs would normally funnel into Republican coffers.

Much of the money diverted from Republican pockets will find its way into Democratic ones. Bill Clinton is infamous for having flipped Wall Street and getting this previously Republican constituency to mostly line up behind his “New Democrats.” The Clintons no doubt view this as a golden opportunity to do the same thing on an even grander scale. You better believe that the Democratic establishment is going to do everything it can to get its hands on every last red cent possible. If that means kowtowing even more forcefully to business interests than so be it.

Thus the logic of the Tim Kaine VP pick presents itself. At first blush the pick of a conservative blue dog Democrat for Vice President seems jarringly tone deaf in a year defined by populist insurgency. Tim Kaine, in addition to having the charisma of a stranger that wants to talk to you about Jesus, is on the right of the party on labor issues, on trade deals, on the banks, on and on. He even sucks on abortion, which is probably the best reason to vote Democrat. With this pick Hillary and the Dems are saying to the monied interests “ignore all that Bernie break up the banks bull, the Democrats are ready to be the partner of business in government.” they will tell the public that this pick was made to shore up support in newly purple Virginia, or bolster the ticket’s national security cred, as though anyone has ever cared about what congressional committee Tim Kaine has sat on. Make no mistake; the Tim Kaine is an olive branch to business interests potentially alienated by Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric and a slap in the face to the progressive wing of the party, a normally impotent force which has suddenly become activated. For the first time in my life the progressives within the party have not just relevancy but actual power. The Democratic machine will do everything it can to co-opt and undermine that power.

The Democratic establishment has attempted to buy off the the progressives with, and Sanders has justified selling out to Clinton by pointing to, the party platform which is being called the most progressive in history. Now, party platforms are meaningless documents which as a rule are ignored and forgotten almost immediately and play basically no role in governing, so excuse me if I’m not super impressed by this concession. Sanders claims he and his people are going to use it to hold Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment accountable, but it’s not clear to me how he could actually do this. Once the election ends so to will Sanders’ leverage. If the Democrats win then they don’t need Sanders and his people anymore. Flushed with corporate cash and with favors to repay they’ll do whatever they like in the lame duck session and the carping of the few congressional progressives won’t matter much. If they lose then Sanders makes for an easy scapegoat; all his demands are discredited and unimplementable anyway. A progressive party platform is a patronizing ploy to get progressives to partner up with a candidate that views them as a tiresome annoyance.

The current plight of the liberal left show that electoralism, at least within the Democratic party, is a dead end. The best thing the liberal left can do now is bolt and try to build political power independent and defiant of the Democrats. Sanders, and in his own inverted way Trump, has shown that there is a political appetite for something outside the neoliberal consensus. Perhaps in spite of himself, Sanders has created a historic opportunity to break with the Democratic party. This opportunity will not likely present itself again in 4 years, as party bosses will be on the lookout for it and take measures against it. What progressives in the Democratic party must understand is that the party establishment would much rather be partners with corporate power brokers than with its own progressive wing. So long as they remain within the Democratic machine progressives will remain junior partners with little influence. Despite the painful promise wrought by the Sanders campaign, as the Democratic party takes advantage of the Trump fiasco to cozy up even closer to business the situation for progressives inside the party will only get worse.